MEC E563 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Antisymmetry, Load Profile, Weight Transfer

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Mechanical Engineering
• Course: MEC E563
• Professor: Walied Moussa

Document Summary

This chapter continues the exposition of nite element modeling principles. After some general recommendations, it gives guidelines on layout of nite element meshes, conversion of distributed loads to node forces, and handling the simplest forms of support boundary conditions. Chapters deal with more complicated forms of boundary conditions called multifreedom constraints. The presentation is recipe oriented and illustrated by speci c examples from structural mechanics. No attempt is made at rigorous justi cation of rules and recommendations, because that would require mathematical tools beyond the scope of this course. The general rules that should guide you in the use of commercial or public fem packages, are1. Use the simplest type of nite element that will do the job. Never, never, never mess around with complicated or special elements, unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing. Use the coarsest mesh you think will capture the dominant physical behavior of the physical system, particularly in design applications.